Wisconsin Hometown Stories

Portage Memories is a partnership of the Wisconsin Historical Society and Wisconsin Public Television.

Narrator

On a damp December night, the people of Portage venture downtown to an event called "Living Windows." Shops on the historic streets free up window space to put a bit of Portage history on display. Taking pride in the past, and in famous Portage area residents, is a local tradition that goes way back. Built on the land between two rivers, on an ancient Native American footpath, Portage was present at the beginning of Wisconsin history, and in many ways, Portage's story is Wisconsin's story. Today, Portage is a place where the present blends with the vanished past, and the people of Portage continue to find ways to treasure their history, to keep their hometown memories alive. In Portage, Wisconsin, the signs of history are everywhere. The town has much more than its share of monuments, markers, and historic districts. Here, it seems like the past is never far behind. Before there were cars, before there were trains or roads, long distance travel took place on water, and rivers were the highways. At Portage, by a quirk of nature, two of these river highways, the Fox and the Wisconsin, flow very close together. One of the things that's so remarkable about this location, which for many decades, centuries even, was called "The Portage," is that it is one of the very few places in the North American continent where you can walk just 2,700 paces, a mile and a quarter, over flat ground and by so doing, connect two of the most important watersheds of the eastern part of this continent. So that you can travel from the Gulf of St. Lawrence all the way to the Gulf of Mexico simply by carrying a canoe across that very short, flat patch of ground. In 1673, the French explorers Marquette and Joliet passed through "The Portage" on their way to the Mississippi River. If you stand on the bridge over the Fox River, where State Highway 33 crosses that river, and then drive south toward the Wisconsin River on what looks to be a very, very ordinary suburban street past the fairgrounds in Portage, it doesn't look remarkable at all. It's only when you know that that was the route that, in 1673, Marquette and Joliet crossed in order to link the St. Lawrence with the Mississippi and thereby discover, for European historical purposes, the great central river of North America, the Mississippi. It's only when you know that that you realize just how important this is. That suburban street is a footpath 10,000 years old. It is one of the most ancient corridors of human travel anywhere in North America. Because of its strategic location, Portage soon became a link in the international fur trade. Many Native American tribes passed through to trade, first with the French, then the British, and finally, the Americans. The symbolic end of Native American control over the area took place at "The Portage," when the Ho-Chunk Chief Redbird, who was accused of attacking squatters on Ho-Chunk land, surrendered to the United States Army. The construction of a U.S. Army outpost, Fort Winnebago, soon followed. The fort guarded "The Portage" in the 1830s and became the core of the town, which would grow up around it.

marching band drums

Narrator

By the end of the 1830s, Fort Winnebago had served its purpose. The fur trade was dying out, and no longer needed protection and the area's Indian tribes, through a series of treaties, were forced to give up most of their lands. In 1853, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, who would go on to become president of the Confederate States during the Civil War, signed the papers ordering the sale of the fort that, as a young officer, he had helped to build. The buildings, in all their glory, really remain only in some elevation drawings that we do have from the U.S. War Department, paintings and a few other drawings. The buildings slowly, I think, disintegrated. There were a series of fires and by 1866 the public was invited in to take the rest of the building materials, remove everything from the site. Today, on the Merlyn Mohr Farm, there are only a few reminders of the complex of fort buildings that once stood here. In 1926, when your grandfather took the farm over, there were no standing structures here, but there must have been foundations and-- Yes, old foundations in different spots and places. We have dug into and found them and-- Marvelous! And the well, which is that central point on all of the drawings of the fort. That's here, and we'll take you over and show that to you. My grandfather built this platform here on top of it. And he's used this for quite a few years. All the cattle drank water out of it. Have you ever been down there yourself? Oh yes, a number of times.

laughing

Narrator

I bet it was hard to imagine what the original builders had to go through to actually put that together. Yes, it was something else. Quite a project, I would have thought. How deep is this? Forty feet, it goes down 40 feet and is about eight or ten feet across on top. Isn't that something. Did you go down just to fix something, fix one of the pipes? Yes, to put a belt or something like that on the pump. Isn't that amazing. Why don't you tell me about these artifacts that have turned up. Well, these here are the musket balls that they used to fire. And we found some of them across even down by the Fox River. This is a flint that goes along with them. That's what fired the powder to shoot the musket ball out. Oh, they're wonderful pieces. This here, is a U.S. Military button. Well, that kind of nails it down, doesn't it? Yeah. This little bottle here, my brother in-law, he was here and we found part of it. It was busted apart. You can kind of see it was broke. We found both parts of it. That's amazing. That's a very early piece of glass. That's remarkable. This here is a big one-cent piece. Do you have a date on this? That's back in 1834. 1834, oh my. This is a lock. It must have been a lock for people up in the jail or something. I don't know just exactly what they used it for. That's very remarkable. In 1866, when people were asked to come in, there were all kinds of buildings and barns and things. It was an incredible opportunity to have those building materials. There would've been 200 men stationed here for a very long period of time, working on elements of putting those buildings together, and their foundations, and suddenly, all those building materials, many of them that survived the fires, were becoming available. That provided the grist for building a community. And that community survives. We're standing in front of a barn that is more than alleged to be part of Fort Winnebago. Mr. Beam, David Beam owned this farm. One day, him and his son drove by and drove in. And he wanted to know if we'd mind if he'd just look around and everything, look at the barn, and my folks said, "Why sure." Then he said to my folks, "Did you know that this was part of the fort?" ( chickens clucking ) We're on a farm. In 1866, there was one complete building left standing at Fort Winnebago. In all probability, this was the building. That would be a formidable size. Yes, it would be. Almost a three-story building. - Yep. To take almost ten miles. You can see how well the roof has stood that, because it's all original up there. So, those are the original cross pieces, the original peg-and-beam architecture. You can see by the size of the boards even. That's original. -It was moved 9.7 miles up what, according to drawings then, was the military road. But it was an Indian trail and there were two tracks superimposed on that from military wagons going from Fort Winnebago to up to Green Bay. It could've been moved by sleigh or it could have been put on wheels. There are deep notches cutting in these horizontal members going all the way across. Do you have any knowledge as to how these were used? They had beams or boards that fit in most notches and then they laid the floor on top of that. That's where the soldiers would sleep up above. It's been very wonderfully and lovingly preserved and as boards have come off the building, they've been saved. The hardware has been saved. There is just an amazing amount of history, local history, that has been preserved here. When you stand inside the building, it's almost an electrifying feeling that you get of history. This is the home of Zona Gale, which she built in 1906. Zona Gale was an only child. She and her parents lived here until they died and she married. Very grand on the outside, Greek revival, as you can see from the two-story pillars with the fan light in the attic gable, with the pilasters on either side of the house. I'm Judy Oldberg. I've lived in Portage, Wisconsin, for 40 years. I've given architectural walking tours for 20. We have architecture starting with the Greek revival style, you know, 1840s up until right now. We have everything in between. I'm able to walk from my house on the river a block to a Queen Anne, two blocks to a bungalow, a block to American Foursquare. So yes, anything in the book, we have on our streets in Portage. This is a great example of the Italianate style of architecture. Made of Portage brick, it is two stories, very imposing and, of course, it's very high style. Portage brick is a cream-colored brick that we have in many of our 19th century homes in Portage. It's called Portage brick because it came from the yellow clay from the river bottoms. We had three brickyards. This was the material that was used for most of the houses that were built, especially the high style houses such as the one that we're talking about now, in the 19th century. What I really want to call your attention to are the two bays. We have a one-story bay and a two-story bay. And these are angled bays going straight out and then back-angling into the house. Also, there's wonderful brackets in this house. And we have all sorts of wood detailing added to the Portage brick detailing. A Mr. Memhard built this house. We love Mr. Memhard in Portage, Wisconsin, because he was a photographer. And at the turn of the 20th century, he went around and took pictures of buildings. Therefore, we know what they looked like when they were built. (piano music) For example, the porch on this house, this 1880s house, is a 1970s remodeling. The wood, of course, had rotted, so they took the picture that Mr. Memhard had taken and they reproduced the porch. This is the house of Sam Stotzer. Sam Stotzer was a worker in granite. He died 100 years ago today. But he left this as a monument to his artistry in working with granite. Sam Stotzer learned the trade when he was very young. He worked on the William Tell grouping on the Minster at Basel, Switzerland. He worked on the main altar and the cathedral doors at the Cathedral in Colon, Germany. He left this for us in Portage, Wisconsin. Sam Stotzer's house is a Victorian house and it's also known as a Romanesque house. "Roman" because it has Roman, or round, arches. You can see that in the porch entrance. And please note those wonderful Montello granite pillars. Those would be the red granite that was taken from the town just north of here noted for its granite. Also the detailing around that Romanesque arch, we have the squirrel, we have the owls, we have all sorts of decorative work done in granite that I think probably was done by Sam Stotzer himself. As with all old houses, we have little secrets. This salamander is the secret of the Sam Stotzer house. Generally, it was considered an omen of good luck, so that's probably why it's here instead of the date stone, which is generally put in this part of the structure. Segmented arches, just like on that other house, remember? Except these have a ridge on it. See, I learn this stuff all the time. How wonderful is that? ( train horn blows ) When I was a kid, that was the best job there was, was the railroad job here. My dad was an engineer and I wanted to be a fireman. I started in the steam engine firing it, and eventually I worked up to be an engineer. I wanted to get on the road right out of high school. I graduated in 1946. I started the railroad in 1947. I went in the service in 1950, got out in 1952 and came right back on the road again. I worked between Milwaukee and the Twin Cities at the end. So I had it pretty much covered. Since its early days, Portage has been a transportation hub. As the city grew, a canal was dug alongside the old Portage trail, to move goods by steamboat between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. And while the Wisconsin proved impossible to navigate, tons of bulk cargo still traveled the canal east to the Fox, and onto the Great Lakes. As railroads began to crisscross the state, Portage became a center of rail lines running north, south, east and west. Frequent runs made it easy for people and freight to travel to bigger cities or nearby towns. Portage facilities included a roundhouse and maintenance shops. Running the trains and maintaining them provided hundreds of good-paying jobs, and a line of work that, for many families, carried on from one generation to the next. A group of retired railroad workers, or "rails," as they call themselves, gathers every week in a local Portage restaurant to talk about the old days, and the changes they've seen. I'm sure that the railroad employed more people than anything else in town, right? Yes. - Absolutely. One thing about it, you had to be from a railroad family to get on it. Or have very good friends that helped you. Not necessarily George. Well, it helped. My great grandpa, was the section foreman at Camp Douglas. My grandpa was section foreman between Portage and Milwaukee. My dad was an express agent. And I think I'm the last of the breed. My dad was a rail, my dad worked all his life, 1917, he retired in 1956. My granddad was killed in 1890. They used to walk the top. And he dropped off at Sparta to get his raincoat. It was raining. And he was walking on top back to the engine. He swung around to get on the tank. He got knocked off on the bridge east of Sparta. They found him hanging. I come from a railroad family. There was a guy at the Dells, his dad was looking for a job for his son, and so his son comes up and he's talking to me and he said, "Can I get on the railroad?" And I said, "Well, I just heard they're hiring. "You might want to go down and check it out." He said, "Well, what's the deal on it anyway?" I said, "Well, you're going to probably have to work, like you might be called

to go to work at like 2

00 in the morning, or you gotta work Saturday and Sunday, no overtime, and holidays, too. And another thing is that you might get called and there might be snow that deep. And you might have something go wrong in the train, you've got to walk half the train length in snow that deep." He says, "Stop right now, I don't want that job." I don't know about these other guys, but when I got hired I had to sign a paper that the railroad came first before church and family. My dad, if I can remember, I don't ever remember him as a kid having a vacation. We could work 16 hours back in them days. You used to be able to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week and never get overtime until you were on that eight hours. Saturday and Sunday, those first eight hours was straight time. We used to wait for people in La Crosse. When I worked in La Crosse, we'd get up there and the rooming house would be full. You'd wait until somebody would get out of bed so you could crawl in. We went through an era from steam powered to diesel locomotives, to updating of equipment and everything. We've seen it all. We were in that era that saw transition from a five-man crew down to a two-man crew, radio communications that we would never have even thought of, and signaling and train operations. We've seen it all. And we're very appreciative of being in that era. Hobo Jungle was right down through here. But the hobos were never chased out of here, because they never caused any trouble. There were guys out looking for work is what they did during the Depression. They were looking for work. They would meet down here. We knew what their heartaches were because, actually, during the Depression, we all went through the same thing. We enjoyed coming here, because they taught us something. They taught us to share things because they shared among everybody. It didn't make no difference if you were a new hobo walking in, "Come on, sit down and eat and have a cup of coffee," or something like that. There was a spring down here at one time, a beautiful spring. And they'd have a big pot, and I don't know if it was squirrels, rabbits, or whatever it was, but they'd put it in the pot with water. But, us kids would go downtown and we knew where all the grocery stores were. So we'd go out in back in the afternoons when the grocers got through throwing their old onions out and their old celeries and rutabagas and we'd take it all down here. They'd take the old parts off and clean it and make stew. Sometimes, they'd ask us if we were hungry. Us kids were always hungry during the Depression, you know, you didn't have a lot of food at home. And they said, "Well, come on and eat," and they'd hand us this little pot. What it was, years ago they had a sardine can about so big around and about that high and it opened up like this, it rolled up. Well, those were clean. I mean to tell you they had soap and water, they were clean. They would take a ladle and they'd dump a stew in there or whatever they were cooking and you'd sit there and eat with them as a kid. And we'd listen. And I'll tell you, sometimes the stories you heard of how the guy had to leave his little babies and that. It kind of brought tears to your eyes. It really did because they were trying to make a living, an honest living. And they were doing it the only way they knew how at that time. So that was the Hobo Jungle. I sold bottles. We had a dump by our house and you went down the gully and there were all these bottles laying over and I found these old guys that liked these bottles. I eventually ran these guys out of money, they didn't have any more money. So they said, "Well, you know, are you interested in postcards?" I looked at them and said, "Oh, these are neat." "These are interesting." So I started to collect all these different cards. They were my town. You could take my paper out and I could go downtown and say, "Oh look, this is what it used to look like." That was exciting. And I took them to school and they were interesting. And then I became on the acquiring thing, anytime I saw one, I got it. My dad was a photographer. He had this studio. And I saw that they were copying old pictures. And I said, "Oh, could I learn how to do that?" Then I could copy my own postcards. That's when I started in the dark room here. I started doing the copy work. People would have a picture of the railroad, or a picture of their dad's store, or something like that. I'd say, "Gosh, if I can keep the negative, I won't charge you for it." Sometimes, I'd give them discounts on the prints, and things like that. If they wanted the negative, I'd shoot two, so I had one for my file. I probably have almost 3,000 images, I would say. I printed them in a five-by-seven size and they fit nicely in my book. This book is just about the canal. It wasn't until people started to ask me, "What's this picture of?" I go, "Oh, well, that's the bank there." "What was next door?" I'd get my microscope out. "The Beehive." "What was the Beehive?" "Well, I don't know." So that started a whole other thing. All of the sudden, you've got all these pictures, now you've got to know what they are. So, over the last 30 years I've become kind of an authority. Not really an authority, but I know a lot of stuff about a lot of these pictures. In the next couple of pictures we're going to see boats called the Wolf, the Fox and the Boscobel. These were the premise of the Portage Canal, 1876 our agricultural ability had kicked in in central Wisconsin. We had corn, and grains, and barleys, and our pricing was real poor here. Railroads were charging a lot of money to move goods. Yet out east, the pricing was really high because it was in such demand. I think a lot of people don't realize how many millions of tons of grains and goods went into these small boats and were transferred into larger Great Lakes boats and taken out east. I used to take the show to the nursing home. Before I'd go to a historical society or something like that, I'd go up to the nursing home and give this program. Really kind of a practice deal, not really thinking I was going to get a lot of feedback. But, you'd sit up there and these guys would have fights with their canes yelling at who was in this picture. Portage was a central post for all types of railroad repair. I mean, we had a roundhouse here where we did all the different steam engine repair. We also had the track repair people here too, so there's a lot of different pictures of people fixing the tracks. Some of the engines didn't fair so well after awhile. They actually were used quite hard. And one of the favorite pictures is the train wrecks and when the boilers exploded. Those were the biggest events and they always had a postcard of that-- Don't ask me. This is the M & P wreck down by Rio. That was a big one. I think 87 were hurt. A lot of different wrecks. This one, the engine blew up and it went into the canal. The bad thing about that is that people got hurt. Usually, the engineer died. The fireman died in a situation like that. This is the Columbia County fairgrounds. It's interesting to look at this and then go down to the fairgrounds, because there were a lot of different livestock buildings. And they were mostly orientated to horses. Horses were the most valuable things. Cattle weren't worth anything. The horses are what you live by. I mean, they brought you to town. They took you to wherever you were going to go. There were lots of horse events. This is a picture of horse racing. This was the biggest thing going. This is unusual, with the chariots going around the race track down at the fairgrounds. It finally got utilized in a book. We did a book. And so, we got probably, 400 of these images in a book. If you had the ten best things you did in your life, that would probably be in my top ten. That was a great thing for me, because I spent all this time, and I finally got them somewhere people can look at them. And so, that's good. That was why I did it, I think. I don't know why I did it. You can talk to anybody who collects stuff. They don't know why they collected that stuff.